How to Set the Boot Order in Your BIOS

I have had several people asking me lately about how to setup the Boot Order in the BIOS.

This is important to do because many installation disks, diagnostic utilities and other programs require a specific boot order to operate.

The main thing you need to do is make sure the CD-ROM is setup to load before the hard drive in your system. This way you can boot disks, and diagnostic tools prior to loading into Windows.

This is important if you are reinstalling Windows or doing a Memory Diagnostic on your system.

To Set the Boot Order in Your BIOS Do the Following:

1. The first thing you need to do to setup the boot order in the BIOS is go into your BIOS.
2. When you computer boots up hit the “DEL” key or whatever other key is specified on the POST screen to “Enter Setup”
3. Once you are in the BIOS you want to look for a menu that is normally labeled “BOOT” but in some cases the section we are looking for can be under “Advanced”.
4. You are trying to find a section that says “Boot Order” or “Boot Device Priority“
5. Once you have found this take a look at how it is currently setup. By default it is usually set to:

FLOPPY
HARD DRIVE
CD-ROM

• We actually want to change this so that the CD-ROM boots before the hard drive.
• Use your keyboard to highlight the “Hard Drive” option and hit enter. This should pop open a new window where you can select CD-Rom and you will see the two flip places in the boot order.
• In some BIOS screen you need to use the + (plus and minus) and – keys to change the order of these options.
• Once you have it setup like this:

FLOPPY
CD-ROM
HARD DRIVE

You are now ready to boot from your diagnostic disk or installation disk.

Hit the F10 key and select “Y” when it asks you to save configuration changes and exit.

Congratulations you have now set the Boot Order in your BIOS.